I work on human geographies of urban and regional change. That includes examination of the transformation of urban regions (cities and wider urban territories), the lives and aspirations of people in those territories, and constitutive connections between them. Empirically, I have focused on Southeast Asia (mostly working on cities in Malaysia and Indonesia) and on interurban connections between that region and elsewhere.

Beginning with doctoral research carried out in the 1990s, my work on the discursive and material making of megaprojects and high-tech urban space in and around Kuala Lumpur culminated in the publication of Malaysia, Modernity and the Multimedia Super Corridor (Routledge) in 2004. The main focus of my research subsequently shifted to examination of historical linkages between Southeast Asia and the port city of Liverpool through the lives of Malay men who arrived there as seafarers in the middle decades of the twentieth century. The book which emerged from that research, From World City to the World in One City: Liverpool through Malay Lives (Wiley) was published in 2016.

I also have a longstanding interest in relations between innovation, broadly conceived, and urban and regional studies – ranging from economic geographies of firm location and networks, to policy and governance ‘good practice’ and to ground-level incremental change associated with individual and community aspirations. I have begun to develop that thread of my research into a book project on geographies of the future.

After more than two decades of teaching at NUS, I have taught a wide range of geography modules, from introductory human geography classes to undergraduate cultural geography, economic geography and methods modules to graduate urban geography seminars. In recent years, that has included Cultural Landscapes (GE3224) and Urban Space: Critical Perspectives (GE4204) at the undergraduate level, as well as both Geography's Graduate Research Seminar (GE6770) and Cities and Global Connections (GE5212) at the graduate level.

I am heavily involved in graduate studies in the Department of Geography at NUS as an advisor to Masters and PhD students. Currently I am currently (co)advising six doctoral students: Ivan Nasution, Anders Moller, Tan Wenn Er, Vanshika Singh, Jonghak Kim, and Isha Panwar.

I am currently involved in two main research projects. The first is a global comparative study of smart city development, led by Prof Byron Miller (University of Calgary) and sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Together with Lily Kong and Orlando Woods (SMU), I am part of the team undertaking the Singapore component of this international collaboration. The second ongoing project is also comparative, and focuses on the planning and construction of new administrative centres in Southeast Asia. Daniel Goh and I have used initial seed grant funding on this topic to build a larger grant application on Putrajaya, Nusantara (the planned new Indonesian capital), and Singapore as "capitals of the future".

BOOKS/MONOGRAPHS AUTHORED

• Bunnell, T. (2016) From World City to the World in One City: Liverpool through Malay Lives. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
• Bunnell, T. (2004) Malaysia, Modernity and the Multimedia Super Corridor: A Critical Geography of Intelligent Landscapes. London: RoutledgeCurzon.

EDITORIAL WORK ON BOOKS AND JOURNALS

• Bunnell, T. and Goh, D.P.S (2018) Urban Asias: Essays on Futurity Past and Present. Berlin: Jovis.
• Miller, M.A. and Bunnell, T. (2014) Asian Cities in an Era of Decentralisation. Abingdon: Routledge [republication of special issue published in Space and Polity]
• Miller, M.A. and Bunnell, T. (2013) ‘Decentralised Governance and Urban Change in Asia’, Pacific Affairs 86 (4).
• Goh, D. and Bunnell, T. (2013) 'Recentring Southeast Asian Cities', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37 (3).
• Bunnell, T., Parthasarathy, D. and Thompson, E.C. (2013) (eds) Cleavage, Connection and Conflict in Rural, Urban and Contemporary Asia. Dordrecht: ARI-Springer Asia Series. [table of contents attached]
• Bunnell, T. and Harris, A. (2012) 'Reviewing urban informality: Perspectives from urban Asia', International Development Planning Review 34(4)
• Bunnell, T., Goh, D., Lai, C-K. and Pow, C.P. (2012) 'Global urban frontiers: Asian cities in theory, practice and imagination', Urban Studies 43(13).
• Miller, M.A. and Bunnell, T. (2012) 'Asian cities in an era of decentralization', Space and Polity 16(1).
• Bunnell, T., Grundy-Warr, C. and Sidaway, J.D. (2006) 'Re-mapping the Growth Triangle: Singapore's Cross-border hinterland', Asia-Pacific Viewpoint 47(2)
• Sidaway, J.D., Bunnell, T. and Yeoh, B. (2003) 'Geography and Postcolonialism', Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 24(3).
• Bunnell, T., Drummond, L.B.W. and Ho, K.C. (2002) (eds) Critical Reflections on Cities in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Times Academic Press.

ARTICLES IN JOURNALS

• Bunnell, T., H. Ng & S.J.I. Yeo (2023) 'Re-engaging psychology for (more) human geographies of the future', Geography Compass 17(1) https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12673
• Bunnell, T., M. Aung-Thwin, J. Clendenning, D. Goh & N.R. Smith (2022) 'Points of Persuasion: Truth spots in future city development', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 40(6): 1082-1099 https://doi.org/10.1177/02637758221133832
• Bunnell, T. (2022) 'Where is the future? Geography, Expectation and Experience across three decades of Malaysia’s Vision 2020', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 46(5): 885-895. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.13105
• Gillen, J., Bunnell, T. and Rigg, J. (2022) Geographies of ruralization, Dialogues in Human Geography 12(2): 186-203 https://doi.org/10.1177/20438206221075818
• Martinez, R., Bunnell, T. and Acuto, M. (2021) 'Productive tensions? The city across geographies of planetary urbanization and the urban age', Urban Geography 42(7): 1011-1022 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02723638.2020.1835128
• Ward, K. and Bunnell, T. (2021) 'Reflections on five years of the Summer Institute in Urban Studies', Urban Studies 58(4): 863-78.
• Tan, A. and Bunnell, T. (2020) ‘Extending aspirations: Taipei street performers and collaborative possibilities’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 45(2): 299-312.
• Bunnell, T. (2019) 'Inclusiveness in urban theory and urban-centered international development policy', Journal of City and Regional Planning. 30(2): 89-101.
• Bunnell, T., Padawangi, R. and Thompson, E.C. (2018) 'The politics of learning from a small city: Solo as translocal model and political launchpad', Regional Studies. 52(8): 1065-1074.
• Loo, W.B. and Bunnell, T. (2018) 'Landscaping Selves Through Parkour: Reinterpreting the Urban Environment of Singapore', Space and Culture. 21(2): 145-158.
• Bunnell, T., Gillen, J. and Ho, E. (2018) 'The prospect of elsewhere: Engaging the future through aspirations in Asia’, Annals of the American Association of Geographers 108(1): 35-51.
• Bunnell, T. and Kathiravelu, L. (2016) 'Extending urban liveability: friendship and sociality in the lives of low-wage migrants', International Development Planning Review 38(2): 208-20.
• Bunnell, T. (2015) 'Antecedent cities and inter-referencing effects: learning from and extending beyond critiques of neoliberalization', Urban Studies 52(11): 1983-2000.
• Phelps. N.A., Bunnell, T., Miller, M.A. and Taylor, J. (2014) 'Urban inter-referencing within and beyond a decentralized Indonesia', Cities 39: 37-49.
• Bunnell, T., Miller, M.A., Phelps, N.A. and Taylor, J. (2013) ‘Urban development in a decentralized Indonesia: Two success stories?’, Pacific Affairs 86(4): 857-876.
• Bunnell, T. (2013) 'City networks as alternative geographies of Southeast Asia', TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia 1(1): 27-43.
• Bunnell, T., Yea, S., Peake, L., Skelton, T. and Smith, M. (2012) 'Geographies of friendships', Progress in Human Geography 36(4): 490-507.
• Hogan, T., Bunnell, T., Pow C.P., Permanasari, E. and Morshidi, S. (2012) 'Asian urbanisms and the privatization of cities', Cities 29 (1): 59-63.
• Phelps, N.A., Bunnell, T. and Miller, M.A. (2011) 'Post-disaster economic development in Aceh: Neoliberalization and other economic-geographical imaginaries', Geoforum 42 (4): 418-426.
• Bunnell, T. and Miller, M.A. (2011) 'Jakarta in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Decentralization, Neoliberalism and Global City aspiration', Space and Polity, 15(1): 35-48.
• Bunnell, T. (2010) 'Routes of identity: Malay Liverpool and the limits of transnationalism', Pacific Affairs 83 (3): 459-479.
• Bunnell, T. and Maringanti, A. (2010) 'Practicing urban and regional research beyond metrocentricity', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 34 (2): 415-420.
• Bunnell, T., Nagarajan, S. and Willford, A. (2010) 'From the margins to centre stage: Indian demonstration effects and Malaysia's political landscape', Urban Studies 47 (6): 1257-1278.
• Bunnell, T. and Das, D. (2010) 'A geography of serial seduction: urban policy transfer from Kuala Lumpur to Hyderabad', Urban Geography 31 (3): 1-7.
• Bunnell, T. (2009) ‘Human geographies of decentralized Indonesia’, Indonesian Journal of Geography 41(2): 195-206.
• Bunnell, T. (2008) 'Multiculturalism's regeneration: Celebrating Merdeka in a European Capital of Culture', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 33 (2): 251-67.
• Law, L., Bunnell, T. and Ong, C. E. (2007) 'The Beach, the gaze and film tourism', Tourist Studies 7(2): 141-64.
• Bunnell, T. (2007) ‘Post-maritime transnationalization: Malay seafarers in Liverpool’, Global Networks 7 (4): 412-29.
• Bunnell, T., Muzaini, H.B. and Sidaway, J.D. (2006) 'Global city frontiers: Singapore's hinterland and the contested socio-political geographies of Bintan, Indonesia', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30 (1): 3-22.
• Wong, K.W. and Bunnell, T. (2006) '"New economy" discourses and spaces in Singapore: a case study of one-north', Environment and Planning A 38(1): 69-83.
• Bunnell, T. and Coe, N.M. (2005) 'Re-fragmenting the "political": globalization, governmentality and Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor', Political Geography 24: 831-49.
• Bunnell, T., Kong, L. and Law, L. (2005) 'Social and Cultural Geographies of Southeast Asia', Social and Cultural Geography 6(1): 135-49
• Sparke, M., Sidaway, J., Bunnell, T. and Grundy-Warr, C. (2004) ‘Triangulating the borderless world: globalisation, regionalisation and the geographies of power in the Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore growth triangle', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 29: 485-89.
• Bunnell, T. and Nah, A. (2004) ‘Counter-global cases for places: contesting displacement in globalizing Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan Area’, Urban Studies 41(12): 2447-67. 
• Bunnell, T. (2004) ‘Re-viewing the Entrapment controversy: Megaprojection, (mis)representation and postcolonial performance’, Geojournal 59: 297-305.
• Coe, N. M. and Bunnell, T. (2003) ‘Spatializing’ knowledge communities: towards a conceptualisation of transnational innovation networks’, Global Networks 3 (4): 437-56.
• Bunnell, T., Barter, P. A. and Morshidi Sirat (2002) ‘Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan Area: A globalizing city-region’, Cities 19 (5):357-370.
• Bunnell, T. (2002) ‘Kampung rules: landscape and the contested government of urban(e) Malayness’, Urban Studies 39 (9):1686-1701.
• Bunnell, T. (2002) ‘Cities for nations? Examining the city – nation-state relation in Information Age Malaysia’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 26 (2): 284-98.
• Bunnell, T. (2002) ‘Multimedia utopia? A geographical critique of high-tech development in Malaysia’, Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography 34 (2): 265-295.
• Bunnell, T. (2002) ‘(Re)positioning Malaysia: High-tech networks and the multicultural rescripting of national identity’, Political Geography 21 (1): 105-124.
• Bunnell, T. G. and Coe, N. M. (2001) ‘Spaces and scales of innovation’, Progress in Human Geography 25 (4): 569-589.
• Bunnell, T. G. (1999) ‘Views from above and below: The Petronas Twin Towers and/in contesting visions of development in contemporary Malaysia’, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 20 (1): 1-23.

SHORTER ARTICLES/COMMENTS IN JOURNAL

• Bates, L., Siemiatycki, M. Ward, K., Das, P., Bunnell, T, Sidaway, J.D., Montgomery, A.. Phinney, S., Haas, A., Mell, I., Conway, T. & Oke, C. (2023) ‘Infrastructure That Connects/Infrastructure That Divides’, Planning Theory & Practice 24(1): 99-130.
• Bunnell, T. (2023) 'C.P. Pow: Our intersecting academic pathways and some of his lasting contributions', Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 44(1): 12-21.
• Bunnell, T., and N. Sambamurthy (2022) ‘Re-evaluating the “good city” from (post)pandemic Southeast Asia’, International Journal of Built Environment and Sustainability 9(2): 1-4.
• Bunnell, T. (2022) 'China at large, Chinas for comparative conversation', Urban Geography 43(10): 1565-1571. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2022.2140968
• Gillen, J., Bunnell, T. and Rigg, J. (2022) Beyond binaries? Spatial possibilities in Southeast Asia, Dialogues in Human Geography 12(2): 227-231.
• Bunnell, T. (2021) 'BRI and beyond: Comparative possibilities of extended Chinese urbanization', Asia Pacific Viewpoint 62(3): 270-273. https://doi.org/10.1111/apv.12321
• Bunnell, T. (2021) 'Ordinary geographies of the future', Dialogues in Human Geography, 11(2): 325-28.
• Bunnell, T. (2016) ‘Conventionally partial critique’, Dialogues in Human Geography 6(3): 282-86.
• Bunnell, T. (2015) 'Smart city returns', Dialogues in Human Geography 5(1): 45-48.
• Bunnell, T. and Marolt, P. (2014) 'Cities and their grassroutes', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32: 381-385.
• Bunnell, T., Ong, C.E. and Sidaway, J.D. (2013) 'Editorial: Jim Blaut and the trajectories of tropical geography', Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 34(3): 285-291.
• Bunnell, T. and Goh, D. (2012) 'Urban aspirations and Asian cosmopolitanisms', Geoforum 43(1): 1-3.
• Bunnell, T., Higgitt, D.L., Savage V.R. and Sidaway, J.D. (2011) ‘The SJTG vision and the tropical mission’, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 32 (1): 1-3.
• Bunnell, T. and Thompson, E.C. (2008) 'Unbounding area studies: Malaysian studies beyond Malaysia and other geographies of knowing', Geoforum 39: 1517-1519.
• Bunnell, T. (2007) ‘Extending hospitality, offshoring protest: When the International Monetary Fund and World Bank came to Singapore’, Political Geography 26: 493-98.
• Bunnell, T., Sidaway, J.D. and Grundy-Warr, C. (2006) 'Re-mapping the "Growth Triangle": Singapore's Cross-border hinterland', Asia Pacific Viewpoint 47(2): 235-40
• Nah, A. and Bunnell, T. (2005) 'Ripples of Hope: Acehnese Refugees in Post-Tsunami Malaysia', Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 26(2).
• Sidaway, J D, Bunnell, T, Grundy-Warr, C, Robina Mohammad, Park B-G, and Asato, S. (2004) ‘Translating political geographies’, Political Geography 23: 1037-49.
• Sidaway, J. D., Bunnell, T. and Yeoh, B.S.A. (2003) ‘Editors’ introduction: Geography and postcolonialism’, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 24 (3): 269-72.
• Olds, K., Bunnell, T. and Leckie, S. (2002) ‘Forced evictions in tropical cities: Introduction’, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 23 (3): 247-251.

EDITORIAL POSITIONS

Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography
Editorial board member, 2000-present
Book review editor, 2009-2010
Associate editor, 2010-2011
Co-editor, 2012-2019

Geoforum
Editorial board member, 2007-2014

Pacific Affairs
Editorial board member, 2007-present

ARI-Springer Book Series
Cities Section editor, 2008-present

Social and Cultural Geography
Editorial board member, 2010-2015

Dialogues in Human Geography
Editorial board member, 2011-2018

Environment and Planning A
Editorial Board Member, 2013-2022

Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
Advisory Board Member, 2012-

Regional Studies, Regional Science
International Editorial Advisory Board Member, 2014-

Journal of Regional and City Planning
Editorial Board Member, 2016-

Urban Geography
Editorial Board Member, 2018-

European Journal of East Asian Studies
Editorial Board Member, 2019-